Intellect and the Structuring of Reality in Plotinus and Averroes John S

Roger Williams University DOCS@RWU School of Architecture, Art, and Historic School of Architecture, Art, and Historic Preservation Faculty Publications Preservation 2012 Intellect and the Structuring of Reality in Plotinus and Averroes John S. Hendrix Roger Williams University, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: http://docs.rwu.edu/saahp_fp Part of the Classics Commons Recommended Citation Hendrix, John S., "Intellect and the Structuring of Reality in Plotinus and Averroes" (2012). School of Architecture, Art, and Historic Preservation Faculty Publications. Paper 29. http://docs.rwu.edu/saahp_fp/29 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the School of Architecture, Art, and Historic Preservation at DOCS@RWU. It has been accepted for inclusion in School of Architecture, Art, and Historic Preservation Faculty Publications by an authorized administrator of DOCS@RWU. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Intellect and the Structuring of Reality in Plotinus and Averroes John Hendrix Though Averroes is not generally considered to be sympathetic to Neoplatonic thinking, there are definite parallels between the philoso- phies of intellect of Averroes and Plotinus. Both can be considered to be “Idealists” in that intelligible form precedes sensible form in perception, and that the material intellect of Averroes or Reason Principle of Plotinus, nous hylikos or pathetikos , depends in its functioning on the agent intellect of Averroes or Intellectual Principle of Plotinus, nous poietikos . The formation of the image in the oculus mentis is co- incident with the formation of a thought, and the sensible form is a transient residue of the permanent intelligible form, as if it is reflected in a mirror and projected on a surface. For both philosophers, material intellect and intellect not connected to sense perception are mediated by a kind of intellectus in habitu , a practicing intellect which leads the individual to higher forms of understanding. The development of phantasmata or imprints of forms in the oculus mentis in the imagination or phantasia is the product of a dialectical relation between the mechanisms of sense perception in material intellect and an a priori understanding of forms in the intelligible, prior to the sensible. In or- der to be perceived, forms must be constructed, in a structuring of reality. Plotinus was born in Lycopolis circa 205 and died in Campania in 270. Averroes, or Ibn Rushd, was born in Córdoba in 1126 and died in Marrakech in 1198. In the Enneads of Plotinus, I.6.3, shape is not something which is inherent to objects in sensual reality, but is rather something which is imposed upon objects by human thought, in the nature of geometry and ordering principles. The sensible form given by the material intellect connected to sense perception is already a product of intellection. The shape of the impression of the form of the object in Plotinus is something conceived, and joined to the material 2 object before it is received as an impression; the shape of the object is part of the a priori vocabulary by which intellect orders the sensual world, and reaffirms the existence of the perceiving subject in the world. For Plotinus, “So with the perceptive faculty: discerning in cer- tain objects the Ideal-Form which has bound an controlled shapeless matter, opposed in nature to Idea, seeing further stamped upon the common shapes some shape excellent above the common, it gathers into unity what still remains fragmentary, catches it up and carries it within…” 1 The form and shape which intellect imposes on bodies are mechanisms of intellect in sense perception. As Averroes explains in the Long Commentary on the De anima , 3.1.5,2 “It is necessary to assign two subjects to these actually existing intelligibles,” the intelligible as it exists in the form of the sensory object, “one of which is the subject due to which the intelligibles are true, i.e., forms, which are truthful images, the other, the subject due to which the intelligibles are only a single one of the entities in the world, and this is the material intellect itself.” The intellect of the perceiving subject in sensory perception is as responsible for how the sensible world is perceived as the forms which are assigned to the sensible world. Sense perception transfers the form of the body or material entity, as conceptualized, according to Plotinus, “no longer a thing of parts, and presents it to the Ideal-Principle as something concordant and congenial…” ( Enneads I.6.3); the perceived form must correspond to the preconception of it, the intelligible form. Dianoia or discursive reason, actualized material intellect, described as “the reasoning- principle in the Soul” in Enneads V.3.2, makes judgments about the sensible form given to it, which is already the product of judgments of the higher intellect, the Intellectual Principle, nous poietikos , the pres- ence of active intellect in actualized intellect, and organizes them in combinations and divisions, corresponding to geometry and mathematics. As the phantasmata or imprints of forms come to reasoning power from intellect, “reasoning will develop to wisdom where it rec- ognizes the new and late-coming impressions (those of sense) and adapts them, so to speak, to those it holds from long before…,” according to Plotinus, as in an actualized intellect or intellectus in habitu . Perception is the product of experience in the interaction of thought and the sensible world, the dialectic of the incorporeal and 3 corporeal, the universal and particular. In Enneads V.3.3, if sense perception is to “develop the impression received, it distinguishes various elements in what the representa- tive faculty has set before it,” and if it makes a judgment on the form, “while it has spoken on information from the senses, its total pro- nouncement is its own…” Discursive reason in material intellect does nothing other than process images of forms which it has already de- fined itself, through the relation between active intellect and material intellect, Intellectual Principle and Reason Principle. Without the capacity to understand the intelligible, the intelligible form in relation to the sensible form, material intellect can only be unaware of the reality of the sensible world which is perceived, and unaware of the role that it plays in the formation and definition of the sensible world which it perceives as external to itself. For Plotinus there can be no immediate sense perception of an object, without the mediation of the mirror reflection of the intelligible form of the object in intellect. In Enneads I.1.8, the intelligible form in intellect becomes the sensible form in sense perception, “not by merg- ing into body but by giving forth, without any change in itself, images or likenesses of itself like one face caught by many mirrors,” in the same way that active intellect presents the intelligible to acquired intellect. Acquired intellect is only capable of receiving the intelligible to the extent of its limitations, as differentiated or sequentially ar- ranged, in the same way that the mirror is only capable of receiving an image according to its corporeal state, adjusted in size and position. The discerning of impressions printed upon the intellect by sensation for Plotinus is the function of discursive reason, not immediate sense perception. Since the sensual impressions in perception are cop- ies and derivatives of intelligible forms, perception itself is a copy and derivative of reason. Reason in Plotinus is composed of mnemic residues of perceived objects, what Plotinus calls “imprints” in “recollec- tions” in Enneads V.3.2. Thoughts are propelled by the desire created by the multiple and fragmented images of perception as reconstructed in reason. In Enneads IV.7.6, sense perceptions merge together in reason like lines coming together from the circumference of the circle, from multiplicity to unity, subject to the ruling principles. In reality, sense objects are variable and differentiated in terms of size and loca- tion; they are multiple and fragmented, and it is only the reason of the 4 perceiver which allows them to be apprehended as whole and congruent. Sense objects themselves cannot be immediately perceived as a congruent whole. Once the diverse and multiple sense objects have been transformed into a whole by apprehension in sense perception, they cannot return to their original state. Apprehension permanently transforms sensual reality in conformance with the principles of reason. Perception, according to Plotinus, divides, multiplies, and other- wise organizes sensual reality; in other words, perception is an intel- lective process, the most basic exercises of which are mathematics and geometry. Perceived objects are divided and organized into parts which correspond directly to the organizational capacities of reason. The relation of parts and subdivisions to the whole and to infinity is the same in the sense object as it is in reasoning capacity. Geometry and mathematics are the mechanisms by which sensual reality is rep- resented by perception to reason, though sense objects do not inher- ently contain geometrical and mathematical properties. For Plotinus, discursive reason approaches nous when reason rec- ognizes its recent sense impressions and “gathers into unity what still remains fragmentary, catches it up and carries it within,” the mnemic residues or memory traces of previous sense impressions, in a process of reminiscence. In the Enneads , while perception grasps the “impressions printed upon the Animate by sensation” (I.1.7), through the mnemic residue, a perception is a mental image for that which is going to remember it, and the memory and the retention of the object belongs to the image-making power (IV.3.29), or the imagination or phantasia .

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